![\"Fair](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2025\/05\/2025_Conference_Ticket_2048_x_2048_px_2.png.jpeg\")
<\/a>Details regarding the approaching 2025 FAIR conference can be found here<\/a>. \u00a0I hope to see you there, although it\u2019s very likely that I won\u2019t be speaking on the topic that\u2019s currently listed for me online. \u00a0I\u2019m not even sure where that title came from. \u00a0Did I<\/em> suggest it? \u00a0If I did, I don\u2019t remember it.<\/p>\n I also hope to see you at this coming Saturday\u2019s second (and last) day of the Interpreter Foundation symposium on \u201cAbraham and His Family in Scripture, History, and Tradition.\u201d<\/a> \u00a0I will be presenting there, although I must caution you that I genuinely don\u2019t regard my paper as very interesting. \u00a0By contrast, I spoke with my friend Jack Welch today about the presentation that he gave at the symposium last Saturday; I think that the argument he presented is absolutely intriguing.<\/p>\n A number of years ago, I was chatting with a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy (now long emeritus) about partisan politics and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a>. \u00a0(This member of the Seventy held a doctorate in political science from Harvard University and had had an impressive international academic career prior to his call to full-time ecclesiastical work.) \u00a0He recalled a conversation with the late Michael Deaver, who had served for several years as deputy White House chief of staff under Ronald Reagan, in which Deaver thanked him for Latter-day Saint loyalty to the Republican Party. \u00a0Feeling impish, Elder X responded that, actually, the majority of Latter-day Saints were probably socialists. \u00a0Mr. Deaver was surprised and puzzled, so Elder X explained that most members of the Church now live outside of the United States and that, for example, most Venezuelan Saints were almost certainly Chavistas<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n Mr. Deaver had forgotten \u2014 or, more likely, didn\u2019t know \u2014 about the existence of Latter-day Saints beyond the borders of the United States of America. \u00a0And so too, seemingly, do those who prattle confidently about how almost all members of the Church are absolutely in love with Donald Trump. \u00a0It turns out, though, that most members of the Church aren\u2019t Americans at all, let alone MAGA Republicans. \u00a0For example, the first Latter-day Saint member of the British House of Commons was Terry Rooney<\/a>, who was the Labour MP for Bradford North from 1990 to 2010. \u00a0David Rutley<\/a>, of the Conservative Party, served as the MP for Macclesfield from 2010 until 2024. \u00a0<\/span>Brian Adam<\/a>, a biochemist, union activist, and member of the Scottish National Party, served as a member of the Scottish Parliament from 1999 until his premature death from cancer in 2013.\u00a0 Stephen Kerr<\/a> was a Conservative member of the British Parliament from 2017 to 2019 and has been a member of the Scottish Parliament since 2021. \u00a0<\/span>There is variety among these four examples, but none of them seems to be (or to have been) a MAGA-style Trump Republican.<\/p>\n However, even claims that American members of the Church are exceptionally devoted to the person of Mr. Donald J. Trump don\u2019t quite hold up to scrutiny. \u00a0It is true, of course, that Latter-day Saints have tended strongly Republican through many presidential election cycles. \u00a0In a 2016 article titled \u201cU.S. religious groups and their political leanings,\u201d<\/a> published just before Donald Trump became the Republican presidential nominee for the first time, the Pew Research Center reported that<\/p>\n Mormons are the most heavily Republican-leaning religious group in the U.S. . . . \u00a0Seven-in-ten U.S. Mormons identify with the Republican Party or say they lean toward the GOP, compared with 19% who identify as or lean Democratic \u2013 a difference of 51 percentage points. That\u2019s the biggest gap in favor of the GOP out of 30 religious groups we analyzed, which include Protestant denominations, other religious groups and three categories of people who are religiously unaffiliated.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Later that year, months after publication of the Pew Research Center piece, Mr. Trump dominated Utah\u2019s presidential caucus with a massive 14% of the Republican vote, eventually surging to a commanding 45.5% of Utah ballots in the state\u2019s November presidential election. \u00a0His performance in Utah\u2019s 2016 general election represented the second worst Republican electoral performance out of the last fourteen presidential contests in the state, and his next two presidential runs represented the fourth and fifth worst. \u00a0It\u2019s very difficult to see those figures as illustrating an exceptional infatuation in Utah or among Latter-day Saints with Donald Trump.<\/p>\n According to exit polls released shortly after last year\u2019s national election<\/a>, high percentages of Latter-day Saints in Nevada, Arizona, and Utah did indeed vote for Mr. Trump. \u00a0But the national exit polls are interesting:<\/p>\n According to Fox News\u2019 2024 election exit poll<\/a>, among the Latter-day Saints surveyed 64% supported Trump and 32% supported Vice President Kamala Harris. . . .<\/p>\n The 2020 Fox News exit poll<\/a> showed nationally 72% of Latter-day Saints supported Trump compared to 23% for former President Joe Biden.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The difference between a 72% pro-Trump vote in 2020 \u2014 pretty much on the mark for the \u201cseven-in-ten U.S. Mormons [who] identify with the Republican Party or say they lean toward the GOP\u201d mentioned in the 2016 article above \u2014 and the 64% pro-Trump vote four years later, in 2024, doesn\u2019t argue strongly for any unusual and growing allegiance to Donald Trump among Latter-day Saints.<\/p>\n For purposes of comparison, an article from the Pew Research Center (\u201cWhite evangelicals continue to stand out in their support for Trump\u201d<\/a>), dated 28 April 2025 \u2014 slightly more than a week ago \u2014 supplies the following figures:<\/p>\n And here is a recent article from the Deseret News<\/em> (20 April 2025: \u201cHere\u2019s what Utah voters say about Trump\u2019s job performance: Trump touted his achievements from his almost 100 days in office\u201d<\/a>):<\/p>\n Despite being a red state, Utah is divided on Trump\u2019s job performance. A slight majority, 54%, said they somewhat or strongly approve of what Trump has done so far, and 42% disapprove, while 5% said they don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n By now, I suppose that it won\u2019t surprise anybody who follows this blog that I regard an approval rating of 54% as much higher than Donald Trump deserves. \u00a0But 54% certainly doesn\u2019t indicate a massive and exceptional Latter-day Saint enthusiasm for Mr. Trump, let along a growing enthrallment with him \u2014 and especially not when that figure is compared with, say, his current rate of approval among American Evangelical Protestants.<\/p>\n One final point: \u00a0There is, it seems to me, a significant difference between someone who is enraptured with Mr. Trump in particular and a habitual Republican voter of more or less conservative inclinations who opted for Mr. Trump (a) because Mr. Trump was the Republican nominee and (b) because that voter regarded Hillary Clinton and\/or Joe Biden and\/or Kamala Harris as flatly unpalatable. \u00a0I know a few genuine Trump enthusiasts. \u00a0I know many more people, though, who simply oppose the current Democratic Party, which they associate with transgender athletes, defunding the police, overregulation, urban anarchy, and a host of other positions that they deem beyond the pale. \u00a0The former are MAGA Republicans. \u00a0The latter are just Republicans, or conservatives.<\/p>\n And while we\u2019re at it, here\u2019s a piece by Yonat Shimron at the Religion News Service: \u00a0\u201cThese women are giving their legislators a piece of their mind \u2014 one quilt square at a time: Mormon Women for Ethical Government and its allies have assembled 57 quilts to present to members of Congress on Wednesday.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\n
\n
<\/a>